Part 19 (2/2)
”This is strong and cruel language, coming from you to me, Alice Duns...o...b..,” returned the stranger, with cool asperity, ”and the time has been when I should have been greeted, after a shorter absence, with milder terms.”
”I deny it not; I cannot, if I would, conceal my infirmity from myself or you; I hardly wish it to continue unknown to the world. If I have once esteemed you, if I have plighted to you my troth, and in my confiding folly forgot my higher duties, G.o.d has amply punished me for the weakness in your own evil deeds.”
”Nay, let not our meeting be embittered with useless and provoking recriminations,” said the other; ”for we have much to say before you communicate the errand of mercy on which you have come hither. I know you too well, Alice, not to see that you perceive the peril in which I am placed, and are willing to venture something for my safety. Your mother--does she yet live?”
”She is gone in quest of my blessed father,” said Alice, covering her pale face with her hands; ”they have left me alone, truly; for he, who was to have been all to me, was first false to his faith, and has since become unworthy of my confidence.”
The stranger became singularly agitated, his usually quiet eye glancing hastily from the floor to the countenance of his companion, as he paced the room with hurried steps; at length he replied:
”There is much, perhaps, to be said in explanation, that you do not know. I left the country, because I found in it nothing but oppression and injustice, and I could not invite you to become the bride of a wanderer, without either name or fortune. But I have now the opportunity of proving my truth. You say you are alone; be so no longer, and try how far you were mistaken in believing that I should one day supply the place to you of both father and mother.”
There is something soothing to a female ear in the offer of even protracted justice, and Alice spoke with less of acrimony in her tones, during the remainder of their conference, if not with less of severity in her language.
”You talk not like a man whose very life hangs but on a thread that the next minute may snap asunder. Whither would you lead me? Is it to the Tower at London?”
”Think not that I have weakly exposed my person without a sufficient protection,” returned the stranger with cool indifference; ”there are many gallant men who only wait my signal, to crush the paltry force of this officer like a worm beneath my feet.”
”Then has the conjecture of Colonel Howard been true I and the manner in which the enemy's vessels have pa.s.sed the shoals is no longer a mystery!
you have been their pilot!”
”I have.”
”What! would ye pervert the knowledge gained in the springtime of your guileless youth to the foul purpose of bringing desolation to the doors of those you once knew and respected! John! John! is the image of the maiden whom in her morning of beauty and simplicity I believe you did love, so faintly impressed, that it cannot soften your hard heart to the misery of those among whom she has been born, and who compose her little world?”
”Not a hair of theirs shall be touched, not a thatch shall blaze, nor shall a sleepless night befall the vilest among them--and all for your sake, Alice! England comes to this contest with a seared conscience, and b.l.o.o.d.y hands, but all shall be forgotten for the present, when both opportunity and power offer to make her feel our vengeance, even in her vitals. I came on no such errand.”
”What, then, has led you blindly into snares, where all your boasted aid would avail you nothing? for, should I call aloud your name, even here, in the dark and dreary pa.s.sages of this obscure edifice, the cry would echo through the country ere the morning, and a whole people would be found in arms to punish your audacity.”
”My name has been sounded, and that in no gentle strains,” returned the Pilot, scornfully, ”when a whole people have quailed at it, the craven cowardly wretches flying before the man they had wronged. I have lived to bear the banners of the new republic proudly in sight of the three kingdoms, when practised skill and equal arms have in vain struggled to pluck it down. Ay! Alice, the echoes of my guns are still roaring among your eastern hills, and would render my name more appalling than inviting to your sleeping yeomen.”
”Boast not of the momentary success that the arm of G.o.d has yielded to your unhallowed efforts,” said Alice; ”for a day of severe and heavy retribution must follow: nor flatter yourself with the idle hope that your name, terrible as ye have rendered it to the virtuous, is sufficient, of itself, to drive the thoughts of home, and country, and kin, from all who hear it.--Nay, I know not that even now, in listening to you, I am not forgetting a solemn duty, which would teach me to proclaim your presence, that the land might know that her unnatural son is a dangerous burden in her bosom.”
The Pilot turned quickly in his short walk; and, after reading her countenance, with the expression of one who felt his security, he said in gentler tones:
”Would that be Alice Duns...o...b..? would that be like the mild, generous girl whom I knew in my youth? But I repeat, the threat would fail to intimidate, even if you were capable of executing it. I have said that it is only to make the signal, to draw around me a force sufficient to scatter these dogs of soldiers to the four winds of heaven.”
”Have you calculated your power justly, John?” said Alice, unconsciously betraying her deep interest in his safety. ”Have you reckoned the probability of Mr. Dillon's arriving, accompanied by an armed band of hors.e.m.e.n, with the morning's sun? for it's no secret in the abbey that he is gone in quest of such a.s.sistance.”
”Dillon!” exclaimed the Pilot, starting; ”who is he? and on what suspicion does he seek this addition to your guard?”
”Nay, John, look not at me, as if you would know the secrets of my heart. It was not I who prompted him to such a step; you cannot for a moment think that I would betray you! But too surely he has gone; and, as the night wears rapidly away, you should be using the hour of grace to effect our own security.”
”Fear not for me, Alice,” returned the Pilot proudly, while a faint smile struggled around his compressed lip: ”and yet I like not this movement either. How call you his name? Dillon! is he a minion of King George?”
”He is, John, what you are not, a loyal subject of his sovereign lord the king; and, though a native of the revolted colonies, he has preserved his virtue uncontaminated amid the corruptions and temptations of the times.”
<script>